Woman found dead at home of August Busch IV

HUNTLEIGH (AP) — Authorities were investigating the death of a 27-year-old woman whose body was found earlier this week at the suburban St. Louis home of former Anheuser-Busch CEO August Busch IV.

Police and the St. Louis County medical examiner’s office on Thursday identified the victim as Adrienne N. Martin of St. Charles. An autopsy has been conducted but results could take four to six weeks.

Police were called Sunday afternoon to the home in the St. Louis suburb of Huntleigh and found Martin’s body. St. Louis County forensic administrator Suzanne McCune said there were no signs of trauma or illness.

Art Margulis, an attorney for Busch, said Martin was a friend of Busch who was visiting the home. He said there was “absolutely nothing suspicious” about Martin’s death.

“It was a tragic death of a young woman,” he said.

STLtoday.com, the website for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, quoted unnamed friends as saying Martin and Busch were dating. The newspaper said Martin was the mother of an 8-year-old child.

Frontenac police, whose area of coverage includes Huntleigh, provided information in a faxed news release that did not say if the death was considered suspicious. Phone messages seeking an interview were not returned. The release did not say why news of the death was not announced until four days later.

The statement from police said the department received a 911 call at 1:15 p.m. Sunday about an “unresponsive person” at the home. Martin was deceased when paramedics and officers arrived, the release said.

McCune declined to speculate on the investigation or the cause of death. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch quoted an unnamed law enforcement source as saying the case was being investigated as a possible overdose. McCune would only say that an overdose was among the possible causes.

A woman identified as Adrienne Nicole Martin, from the St. Louis area and the same age as the victim, posted on the website iStudio.com that she was studying to be an art therapist and was hoping to become a model. “I really would like to do beer advertising,” the woman wrote in the posting.

Busch, 46, was chief executive at Anheuser-Busch from 2006 until the maker of Budweiser, Bud Light and other beers was purchased by InBev in 2008. The $52 billion merger created the world’s largest brewery. Busch remains a member of the board of directors for InBev.

The Post-Dispatch reported that Busch and his wife of 21⁄2 years divorced in 2009.

In 1983, Busch, then a 20-year-old University of Arizona student, left a bar with a 22-year-old woman. His black Corvette crashed and the woman, Michele Frederick, was killed. Busch was found hours later at his home. He suffered a fractured skull and claimed he had amnesia. After a seven-month investigation, authorities declined to press criminal charges, citing a lack of evidence.